Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/82

68 Arabian Nights are simply a series of brilliant pictures of what may be witnessed still when a group gathers about a story-teller in the bazaars of Cairo or Damascus, or round any camp-fire on the desert.

A people who are thus but children, must be treated like children, not like full-grown men. It is useless to present to them formal propositions or arguments. I should no more think of reasoning with a Bedawee than of reasoning with a baby. Give him backsheesh, and that he can understand, but argument he cannot understand. Try to govern him by appealing to his conscience or his commonsense, and you will make a dismal failure. He has little power of reflection or of judgment, and a very imperfect germ of a moral nature. The ordinary standard by which he measures men or actions is by the amount of backsheesh they give. A good man is one who gives "plenty backsheesh"; he who refuses this is to be accursed. Our men seem to regard me with a friendly eye as "the father of backsheesh." They look up to the Howadji as a kind of Providence, who is to rain gifts upon them, causing the desert literally to blossom as the rose. The honor they put upon me would be embarrassing were it not that they are easily satisfied. The Arab is pleased with a trifle which tickles his appetite or touches his vanity — a bit of gay color to wrap round his head, or even a pinch of tobacco to fill his pipe. I hope my rigid friends at home will not accuse me of corrupting the simplicity and innocence of these children of the desert, when I confess that the dragoman, wishing to exalt me in their esteem, brought me every morning a pouch of tobacco, to be dispensed in the course of the day. I was not prodigal of such riches, but when a poor fellow looked up to me appealingly, pointing to his empty pipe, I gave him a pinch to fill it. Never did a little seed, sown on good ground, bring forth a richer